More Grown Up
by callmesandy
Summary: post-ep 5x02. Kensi is intent on Monty coming home to Deeks. (small reference to suicidal ideation.)


Notes: not for profit, do not own. For the ncis bingo spot "love bit." Title from Rilo Kiley's A Better Son/Daughter. Thanks to jf for awesome beta help!

* * *

Deeks is asleep, and Kensi just watches him. She sits up, gets up, turns off the movie and starts looking around the apartment. She sees his gun and the mess. Then Kensi sees his tablet.

It's self-sabotage, obviously. She's screaming at herself while she turns on her investigator auto pilot brain. She should bite her own hand and stop. She checks his search and browser history. It's scary and unsurprising. He's searched all the things she has, except with added symptoms she didn't know he had. Of course, it's Deeks who thinks reiki works so he's returning to a couple of hippie dippie buy the right candle and you'll be fine websites.

He's still asleep when she turns her head so she goes into his email. He's using the same password with very slight variations for all his emails. "Doofus," she mutters.

He's been ignoring those just like his phone calls. There's a bunch from her, Callen, Hetty, Eric, Nell and some names she recognizes as his friends. The only ones he's opened are from the hospital about insurance.

Someone named Albie has sent him a picture every day of Monty.

She puts the tablet back where she found it and tries to make it look like she didn't just violate his privacy like he was a suspect.

Monty isn't here. His dog bed, his food, his general Monty stuff is nowhere to be found. She should have noticed sooner. She goes to the kitchen and finds herself cleaning up, straightening. She even empties his refrigerator and takes out his garbage. Which is what he does all the time whenever he comes over so this part is not an invasion of privacy or uncharacteristic behavior. Not too uncharacteristic. She's just not sleepy. She has to do something and not think or stew or rifle through his underwear drawers.

Until she is sleepy. Kensi goes back to the couch and snuggles up next to him. She falls asleep in a minute.

He wakes up and sits up with a loud "yowza!" so she's awake, too.

"That was bracing," he says, smiling. "I feel pretty rested."

"Maybe now would be a great time to take a shower," she says.

"Are you saying I smell?" He sniffs his pits. "Wow, you are right."

"Classy," she says. "You're very classy right now."

He walks into the bathroom. While he showers she goes back to cleaning up. She sees his gun on the table, picks it up carefully. It's loaded and recently cleaned but not recently fired. She likes to clean her guns. Deeks doesn't do it for fun, though. She puts it back where she found it.

He comes out rubbing his hair with a towel and wearing roomy boxers. Also not his usual and she presses her lips together before she notices that out loud. He says, "Are you really cleaning?" He sounds dumbfounded.

"Nervous energy," she says. "You're freaking me out. Your place is."

He looks skeptical.

She says, "I looked in your email. And your browser history."

Now he looks pissed. "Really?"

"You, you read my memoir," she says. "You pry into my stuff all the time."

"Not into your password protected -" He stops himself from smiling but she can see it. "Just the one time when your life was in danger."

"If positions were reversed, you would have done it," she says. "Also, you have to stop using Loggins and Messina as your password wherever it says log in."

"It's a great password," he says. "And it makes me smile. And it's hard to guess. I would actually say no one would guess it."

"No one plus one," she says, smirking.

"That just proves my point," he says. He's back to smiling. He's even moving around the apartment, straightening up, too. She flops back on the couch. "Incredibly difficult to guess. You'd have to know I like Kenny Loggins and enjoy his music -"

"You own the box set. How many people own that box set?"

"But I own a lot of box sets. My iTunes library is huge and unlike some people, diverse. Not just beeps and pings and screaming emo punks." He goes back into the bathroom and comes out with some clothes and towels. He starts making piles for laundry. "And I'm still feeling violated."

She envies his apartment washer and dryer so much. She says, "Still, simple scans would find your love of the Danger Zone."

He hums the tune. Then he goes into the bedroom and comes out with more dirty clothes. He says, "Lots of people only like his solo stuff and not his brilliant work with Jimmy Messina. And you'd have to know my sense of humor. And stop dodging what you did."

"Your humor: slapstick, bad puns, single entendres. And I told what you did, I didn't have to," she says.

He grins and starts the first load. "Point. You wanted me to know you did it, though, I think we can chalk that up to your fear." He pauses. "Anyway, it's a hard password to figure out. It has numbers and letters and I capitalize different letters each time."

"Still figured it out," she says. She shrugs. "Where's Monty?" She hears her own voice and thinks it came out not angry, too desperate.

"You read my email," Deeks says.

"You should get him back," she says. "I miss him." He looks at her and she looks down. "I miss you, too. Missed you. But I do miss Monty."

"Okay," he says. "You're so convincing."

"Why did you give him away?" That tone in her voice was definitely tentative and desperate.

"I couldn't sleep," Deeks says. He goes into the kitchen and comes back with a cloth and some cleaning spray. He starts dusting. "I couldn't sleep," he says.

"You said that twice," she says.

"I really meant it," he says, a little bit of laughter back in his voice.

"Monty would help with that," she says.

He snorts and then sits down next to her on the couch. He says, "I didn't give my best friend away, I sent him to another friend until I got some sleep."

He is looking at his gun. She is looking at his gun. They sit in silence for what feels a long time. Then he says, "What if I can't get back to sleep?"

She says, "Are you sleepy now?"

He smiles at her. "Actually yes." He gets up and walks to his bedroom.

She follows him until the washer beeps. "I'll get it," she says.

"Delicates," he says, not very loudly.

"I know," she says. He prefers to dry things on the lowest cycle even if it's tough denim. She even adds the dryer sheet from the packet which has blue and red flowers on it. It's "green," whatever that means.

She knocked on his door tonight, she did that thing. She walks into his bedroom. He's already curled up on his side, on top of an immaculately made bed. It looks like he made the bed three weeks ago and never stepped inside this room again, except to get clothes, probably. Monty's dog bed is gone from the floor on the side of the bed.

She knocked on his door. He told her they're a love story. She takes a deep, shaky breath just thinking about it. She is also exhausted. She gets on the bed next to him.

He moves closer to her. She relaxes, for once, for what feels like the first time in months. She thinks they should make dryer sheets with bears and guns and forests on them for single men who are more manly than Deeks. She has a business idea, she thinks, as she drifts off to sleep.

She vaguely wakes up as he pulls her closer and she melts into him.

She wakes up again and has to pee. He's still asleep and his arm is across her stomach. She doesn't want to move. She really really has to pee now.

She shifts a little and his arm tightens on her and he even whimpers a little. She puts her hand over his and says, "ssssssssssssh shhh, sleep." Nonsense syllables until he relaxes again. She gets up and kisses the top of his head before she even thinks about it.

She thinks about it in the bathroom. She stares at the familiar wall and the picture of dogs playing poker. He moved it in here after he found the cheaper one at the market. Her brain needs to be quiet. She really does miss Monty.

She has a stash of clothes here from food spills and running together and don't have quarters please let me use your washer dryer partner moments. She goes to the closet and finds it all there, folded on the top shelf like the last time she saw it. She almost says "YES" much too loudly when she finds panties and a sports bra. She stares at the underwear trying to remember if this is really hers. He wouldn't, though, she thinks. They are hers and she remembers she missed them one time when she was getting her stuff out of the dryer and he made fun of her because they are super boring grey boyshorts. He said they clearly weren't date undies and she'd rolled her eyes and said he hadn't seen them on.

She stands in the closet for a moment just remembering.

She grabs a tee and capri yoga pants. She showers, uses his deodorant, and changes. She puts her clothes and underwear into the washer and adds his next pile.

She goes hunting for Monty's things. She hangs up his leash on the hook by the door. She puts his dog bed back in Deeks's bedroom, where Deeks has rolled onto his stomach. She puts down Monty's water bowl and food bowl. She puts in food.

Deeks says, "You really did miss Monty."

He's dressed in jeans and a very old tee.

"I really did," Kensi says. "It wasn't subtext about missing you."

"Okay, but there was still some subtext."

She shrugs. "Let's go get Monty."

"You are really set on this," he says.

"It's Monty," she says. "He's good for you." She sounds stupid. "You need, you should have good things. Good people around you. Good dogs. You're the one who said he was your best friend."

Deeks looks at her for a long time, not smiling, not frowning. Finally, he says, "Okay. Let's go get Monty. You drive, I have to call Albie and tell him we're coming over."

Albie is at least 6'5", 300 pounds of solid mass. Monty is barking and jumping all over Deeks as the two of them reunite. There's licking and kissing and hugging. And then there's Monty, Kensi thinks, smiling, Albie says, "I'm gonna miss that mutt. I've got 8 dogs here, Monty was keeping them in order. In his way."

"He's a great dog," Kensi says. "He should be with his daddy."

"That's what I told Marty," Albie says.


End file.
